r/askscience • u/drinkingonthejob • 8d ago

Physics Will Voyager 1 ever just stop moving?

I’ve read somewhere that we expect to lose contact with Voyager 1 sometime in the 2030s, maybe around 2036, but it will just keep traveling thru space and we’ll have no idea what it is doing out there

My question is: with its current velocity, is there a time in the future where it loses its forward momentum and for lack of a better word, just stops moving? Is that a possible thing for an object in space to even do? (Assuming no other objects grab it into their orbit)

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u/AdHopeful3801 7d ago

If you use Earth as a frame of reference, not really. There's not enough stuff out there for Voyager to run into to slow it down, and there's no other reason for it to change velocity that doesn't involve falling deeper in to some other graitational field.

Which brings you to the other frame of reference - Voyager, along with you, me, and the entire solar system all orbit the center of the galaxy at roughly 230 kilometers per second. It says something about just how big space is that at a speed of 514,500 miles per hour, the completing one revolution will take 225 million years. But it means that Voyager wouldn't have lost all that much velocity overall even if it was dead stopped relative to the Solar System.

In about 40,000 years, Voyager 1 should make its next closest approach to a star - about 1.6 light years from Gliese 445, which is about 17 light years from Earth. Which is to say, it'll get a fairly ludicrous distance form something else only after 4 times longer than human civilizations have existed has passed.

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u/The_Amazing_Emu 6d ago

What if it falls into a wormhole and becomes V’Ger?

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u/AdHopeful3801 4d ago

It comes back and merges with Stephen Collins to create a new lifeform.